


Like A Calendar, The Heart Skips Forward

by Austennerdita2533



Series: Can You Whisper In My Ear The Things You Wanna Feel? [2]
Category: Gilmore Girls
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Humor, Kissing, New Year's Eve AU, Post-Revival, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-02 04:57:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17257976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Austennerdita2533/pseuds/Austennerdita2533
Summary: Nearly eighteen years, a few missed chances, and a fresh start at a committed relationship later, and Rory and Jess are still one of the most precious agoraphobic couples around. Why go out on New Year's Eve when they can spend it at home with the person who loves and understands them best?





	Like A Calendar, The Heart Skips Forward

**Author's Note:**

> This more or less poured out of me. I couldn't help myself.
> 
> Happy New Year, lovelies! May 2019 bring you peace, happiness, and all the Literati adorableness your heart desires. 
> 
> xx Ashlee Bree

With drunken crowds, ugly tinsel streamers which hang in windows, and snow that’s beginning to stick to the city streets in inches as deterrents, they decide to spend the night in. At home. 

The baby’s with her grandparents tonight, probably high on too much sugar and Dr. Seuss. Knowing Luke, he’s likely baby proofing everything again to be safe while Lorelai's using scary voices so her granddaughter never goes near the stove (but hey, neither did Rory, and she’s turned out fine, hasn’t she?), so she and Jess have plenty of time to themselves. That’s a rarity these days, especially with a toddler in the picture. Alone time seems possible only at ungodly hours in the morning anymore, or during nap time, or in stolen minutes between hectic work schedules, so they’re grateful to Mom and Luke for the offer to babysit every now and again. And they love to do it, to spoil her little angel rotten with small town affection and attention. All the people of Stars Hollow love it, too.

As for Rory and Jess, they enjoy these adult-only nights. It’s a time to revel in intellect, in intimacy. 

They love to tune into the timbre of the other’s conversation and fade into each new day talking, listening. It’s exhilarating to them to share new ideas. To uncover deeper feelings in their relationship, but also for them to reach further into the world to figure out what more they can do. Experience. _Be_. 

Parties hold no charms for them this evening. Neither do bars or over-priced concert tickets. Invites from friends go unanswered because they forget to read their messages. They’re more than content to spend the night far away from the end-of-the-year bombast, anyway, with nothing but each other and the hum of this ratty old radiator for company. 

They live in an old building so it’s no one’s fault when a malfunction occurs, as one often does. 

Luckily, the heat works fine thanks to Jess and his patient tinkering. (Rory never says it out loud, but she swears he’s inherited this from Luke.) Countless hours he spends bent over tools with a concentrative crease in his forehead because their super, Mel, is a slovenly middle-aged coot who binges too much Netflix and refuses to answer knocks on his door from any of his tenants past 9 P.M. Mel likes to blame this incompetence on narcolepsy, but truthfully, it’s because the couch has molded to his prone body by that point, the television playing episode after episode of _Frasier_ or _The West Wing_ , so why trouble himself to move? Better yet, why not put his ringer on silent and ignore all the incoming calls he receives? 

(Spoiler alert: he does.) 

Encountering one of the Seven Deadly Sins in an actual person still seems a little ridiculous to Rory, borderline unlikely here; especially in a city teeming full of worker bees who supposedly never sleep, but they’ve managed well enough with the radiator on their own. And by well, she means she’s prone to kicking the darn thing any time it roars like it’s a beast straight out of Kevin McCallister’s nightmares in _Home Alone_. 

It’s cozy and comfortable in the apartment tonight, however. Just the way they like it.

That means Rory’s in her favorite pair of slippers, big cumbersome things with floppy ears and shaggy puppy faces curiously similar to Paul Anka’s. Her hair’s loose, fallen past her shoulders, and her arms are stuffed into an oversized Cashmere sweater. Meanwhile, her boyfriend’s walking around barefoot, half-naked in a pair of boxer briefs and a green v-neck tee, his jeans in a ball near the door, seemingly impervious to the December weather. 

Is he secretly a werewolf or something, she wonders? An alien? Or just some weirdo who sweats when it’s only sixteen degrees outside, a furnace for girls like her who huddle closer for warmth and never utter a word of complaint?

Music plays low in the background. It’s a playlist curated on one of their phones. Songs from Bjork, the Clash, the Distillers, so many other new and old bands - their favorites - add to the ambiance of this eclectic space they call home.

A half-edited manuscript perches on the edge of the coffee table. Its pages are blotted with black ink and arrowed notes that spill wide into the margins because Jess had spent the morning editing his latest draft, unsatisfied because his characters aren’t where he wants them to be yet. Books litter the kitchen counter. They sit scattered across the floor in organized piles near shelves that are already overflowing, some still stuffed in paper bags because they’d pilfered a thrift shop earlier and now can find nowhere to store the bulky bastards. (Typical for a pair of bookworms who will never have enough reading material between them.) 

Appointment reminders and cute little post-it notes stick to the refrigerator in an array of colors. Most are in Rory’s hand, flourished in cursive or silliness, except for the few Jess added by famous authors or musicians because the words moved him; or because he thought they’d start her day with a pretty thought. A smile. A laugh that’d brighten the blue of her eyes.

The living area’s a messy snapshot of their family life with its stench of stale coffee, cologne, and baby lotion. There’s a jacket thrown over the arm of a plush designer sofa and way too many half-empty boxes of Pop Tarts fighting for space in the cupboard with jars of smooth peanut butter and pureed carrots. A laundry basket holds many of the little one’s toys: choo-choo trains, baby dolls, a Batmobile, three sets of ABC blocks, a Wonder Woman figurine, and a stuffed robot aptly named Bee-Doo. 

The remote control is always lost somewhere unknown. They might as well attach a key finder around its middle. Or perhaps they should rip up the floorboards instead - a lá _the Tell-Tale Heart -_ because it never takes less than twenty minutes to find the stupid gadget. Either it’s buried under cushions, kicked under miles of folded clothing or prose, or it’s stuffed beneath pillows with spare kernels of popcorn and pens attached to the buttons. Worse than all of that, though, is how the lost-and-found treasure hunt never seems to diminish their scrolling-for-something-to-watch minutes at all. Not in the slightest!

Later, they order takeout from five of their favorite places. It’s too much food for two people to consume in one meal, but who cares? It’s never stopped her or her mother before, so why start now? 

There’s pizza, burgers, Thai, Chinese, and one heaping order from that Indian place she’d found around the corner about a month after they’d moved to Brooklyn. It has the most delicious pungent food, so naturally that leaves Jess scrunching his nose and Rory twinkling appreciatively because he’s caved to her doe-eyed pout for once, her belly and heart happy for getting their way. 

“See here, mister: victory is mine! I knew you loved me too much to deny me. Admit it,” she says before pecking him sweetly on the cheek. 

“Yeah, yeah,” he says after he pays for the delivery and dumps the bags on the table. “Whatever you say.” He remains noncommittal, but the truth shines in his eyes. “Just don’t complain about the cold when I open all the windows. It’ll take weeks to air out the stink in here—weeks. Probably three.”

“Two.”

“Three,” he fires back.

“ _Two._ ”

“Okay, two…maybe.” He brushes hair from her face and lets his fingers linger, then smiles her favorite crooked smile. “If we’re damn lucky, anyway.”

After dinner, they eat cheesecake with a bottle of wine. Ice cream with cones is Jess’s dessert preference usually, but they’re out, so they settle for booze and a tasty variation on dairy to help them compile their to-read lists for 2019. He’s on the left side of the sofa, she on the right. Call it a private, serious exercise. Extra points docked for peeking or flirting.

Such a silly idea it is, really, this hoarding then exchanging of lists. Yet it’s a fun way to pass the hours before midnight. Even more fun when they discover the selections that align, and those that don’t, sending them into a tizzy’d discussion about literature and writers the other still needs to know. Pretty soon, another list follows full of recommended titles Jess thinks she should read in the New Year, and vice versa.

Lane had called them a cute agoraphobic couple once, many years ago, if Rory remembers correctly. And by golly, what a label! If only she were here to see them right now, tangled in warmth and limbs and solitude. 

She beams at the memory because that’s what she and Jess were back then. It’s what they still are. It’s who they want to be this New Year’s Eve, and the next…and the next…and for every one after for as long as they can live them like this: in love, happy, and together. They’d live this way forever, if only wishes like this could be granted. 

“What I wouldn’t give for a Fairy Godmother right now,” she blurts out without thinking, all wrapped up in blankets and curled tight into his chest. “To have a dash of Disney magic or two in my possession would be _supercalifragilistic._ ”

“Why? You don’t need saving.”

“That’s true.”

“So is it Prince Charming you’re after?” Jess asks with a quirk of the eyebrow.

Frowning, “What kind of girl do you take me for? I’m a feminist.”

“You want to freeze the world like Elsa then, huh? Is that it?”

“No.” Tracing his lips with her forefinger, Rory pauses. Reconsiders. “Well, I mean…only if I got to spend all of that time skating across it with you.”

“You mean falling,” Jess mutters.

“Rude! Read my lips: _skating_.”

He shrugs then. It’s followed by a smirk. “Impossible things are happening every day…or so it goes.” 

Giggling, she shoves him, then covers her mouth with her hands.

“Wow, I can’t believe you’re quoting Whitney Houston from _Roger and Hammerstein’s Cinderella_. Who are you?”

“Like you haven’t seen it. Give me a break.”

“Many times,” she says, “but that’s not the point. The point is you’ve given a Gilmore ammunition to mock you for the rest of your life. Hasn’t Luke warned you about this? We’re unapologetic mockers, Mom and I.”

“Jeez, you’re mean,” Jess says with a shake of his head and an affectionate pinch to her side. “I should start calling you Grory.”

“Hey, no fair! I’m no Grinch. No Grendel, either.”

“Pre-coffee, that’s arguable.”

“I demand a re-write,” she says, crossing her arms, determined for her pout to win out for a second time.

“No way,” he replies. “That’s too much work, Green One.”

“Fine. As long as you realize you’re stuck with me regardless.”

“Am I?” 

“Aren’t you?” Rory asks like a question that dangles, then deflates. Her voice catches with uncertainty. The sound’s worse than the squeal a lobster makes in a boiling pot as she shifts onto her ankles on the sofa to pin him with a wide-eyed look, her heart pounding, mouth drier than Death Valley in the middle of a drought. Color rushes to her cheeks because Jess remains silent before her…because he reaches for the tattered copy of _Persuasion_ that’s perched near his feet so he can underline one of Captain Wentworth’s most famous passages in black ink. _I can listen no longer in silence_ , it reads. _You pierce my soul._ She knows the quote well. She knows it by heart.

However, it’s not until Jess scribbles down his own line onto the page with some rogue pen he’s found teetering on a shoe with no mate, his hand trembling, the apple in his throat bobbing like it’s been pinched by some invisible force he never saw coming; and it isn’t until he places the book in her lap so she can read what he wrote, that joyful disbelief betrays her. That her tears start flowing and flowing. They cover her face in red-eyed tenderness and devotion. 

One look back at him, and she knows he feels the same. The love between them so real and so right, it fills the calendar with fulfillment they no longer wish to live without.

_Marry me_?

Two words, and the jerk’s a poet. Two words, and it’s only him she sees. Two words, one question, and Rory’s faced with an answer that takes no energy to give at all.

_I’d be honored to be the Anne to your Wentworth,_ she writes back with shaky fingers and a grin so big she can barely see. _So yes! Yes! A million times yes!_

Wine switches to scotch sooner rather than later after that. Then talking turns to kissing, kissing moves to roving touches without either one of them noticing.

Both hands of the clock reach nearer and nearer to twelve as Rory pauses the movie they weren’t actually watching with a yawn, her sapphire diamond sparkling in the T.V’s muted light. Then she stands to refill their glasses one final time before 2018 ends, slippers scratching against the carpet. Jess wraps his arms around her waist while she pours. He smells of booze and sex and home.

Eyes closed and body rocking, he places a kiss against her arm, her shoulder, her neck, her mouth. He leaves a promise there that tastes of all that awaits them and more. 

Together, they watch the snowflakes fall and drift to the fire escape outside their window, a moment of quiet before they pack the rest of the leftovers away so they can head to bed with this year lapsed behind them like another chapter closing. The page turns, and before they know it, December endings become January beginnings. The calendar’s blank and in wait of prose that has yet to be written, both of them looking forward to another 365 days full of learning, laughter, commitment, and so many more family firsts along the way.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are wonderful. Thanks so much for reading!


End file.
